Directed by Joel Schumacher "You'll never grow old Michael, and you'll never die." So eternal youth is on full display in Joel Schumacher's The Lost Boys, a supremely 80s movie about a group of vampires who rule the summer nights at the Santa Cruz Boardwalk. Well it's a town called Santa Carla, but having grown up … Continue reading The Lost Boys (1987)
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The Conjuring (2013)
Directed by James Wan Yeah so for someone like me who doesn't like to be startled, The Conjuring is terrifying. It's a straight up horror movie, for better or worse, and I can see why genre fans like it and why others may not. The thing about horror movies (and this is coming from a … Continue reading The Conjuring (2013)
Halloween (1978)
Directed by John Carpenter The term "serial killer" didn't exist when Halloween first came out. So yeah, there had never really been anything quite like Michael Myers before he showed up. There had been ghosts and ghouls, zombies and aliens, even the perhaps slightly more human antagonists of the occult (Rosemary's Baby, The Exorcist) but there had … Continue reading Halloween (1978)
They Live (1988)
Directed by John Carpenter They Live both mocks and decries capitalism, effectively, which might have been a surprise considering how much of a B movie this is. It stars a professional wrestler, Roddy Piper, features a five minute long fight sequence between Piper and Keith David over a pair of sunglasses, and well yeah, it's … Continue reading They Live (1988)
The Sisters Brothers (2018)
Directed by Jacques Audiard Starting with a cold massacre, The Sisters Brothers builds to an unexpectedly tender finale. It's a western that feels subversive if only because it becomes less violent over time, following its sibling assassin duo as they leave the game behind and look for other ways to survive. That's not their goal … Continue reading The Sisters Brothers (2018)
Five Feet Apart (2019)
Directed by Justin Baldoni Alright so I watched the sick kids falling in love movie. I don't mean to be reductive or to take away from the story here, but Five Feet Apart is a young adult romance that very much just follows the template of 2014's The Fault in Our Stars. Going back even further it's … Continue reading Five Feet Apart (2019)
The Mustang (2019)
Directed by Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre The Mustang is about Roman (Matthias Schoenaerts), a prison inmate with an anger problem as he develops an interest in working with wrangled mustangs to "break" them so that they can be auctioned off. It's an intimate portrait of the man, reminiscent of recent films like The Rider (2017) and Lean on … Continue reading The Mustang (2019)
Police Story (1985)
Directed by Jackie Chan, Chi-Hwa Chen So this is maybe the best action movie of all time? Police Story is about an officer assigned to protect a witness for the prosecution in its case against a drug lord, but it's really a romantic comedy with a tantalizing amount of action set pieces that don't involve guns. These … Continue reading Police Story (1985)
Road House (1989)
Directed by Rowdy Herrington Patrick Swayze plays a peace-minded bouncer in Road House, an action movie so glorious, satirical, oily and self-aware that it seems the perfect capper to a decade of over the top action movies. Dalton's (Swayze) reputation precedes him wherever he goes. He's tough, no-nonsense, and like in so many of these kinds … Continue reading Road House (1989)
To the Wonder (2012)
Directed by Terrence Malick There is certainly something admirable about Terrence Malick and this film in particular. It's so unabashedly Malick, so artful and abstract, with no real dialogue or exposition to lean on. Before we even hear any two characters speak we see them dance, giggle, run and throw themselves into each other's arms. … Continue reading To the Wonder (2012)
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